South Africa’s G20 presidency comes at a time when the international system is under sustained strain. Multilateral forums are faltering, trust between major powers is at a historic low, and global cooperation increasingly feels like an afterthought. Against this backdrop, expectations for any G20 presidency – let alone one led by a middle power – must be tempered.
The international context is not conducive to sweeping breakthroughs. Even incremental progress requires navigating geopolitical obstruction, limited institutional bandwidth, and domestic pressures in G20 capitals. South Africa inherits a forum whose relevance is under question, and whose capacity for collective action is increasingly constrained.
Yet within those constraints lies a narrow, but important, opportunity. In this context, the aim should not be to transform the global order but to refocus its attention on areas where consensus is still possible and where impact is still meaningful.
The case for doing so begins with a sober understanding of what “security” means in the current context. The term has long been dominated by military concerns and traditional state-centric definitions. But this framing is no longer adequate, particularly for African states, where security threats are increasingly diffuse, multidimensional, and deeply embedded in social, economic, and environmental fragility.
To be clear, reframing security is not a silver bullet. But it may be one of the few entry points left for pragmatic cooperation in a divided world. And it allows South Africa to align its presidency with both African priorities and the evolution of global dynamics.
Here, three dimensions are especially relevant: physical security, economic security, and human security. Each intersects with the others, and each has been exacerbated by a combination of neglect, underinvestment, and geopolitical ambivalence.
Physical security across the continent has deteriorated markedly in recent years. Conflicts in the Sahel, Sudan, and eastern DRC are only the most visible signs of a broader regional trend: weak state capacity, cross-border armed groups, and climate-driven displacement are creating chronic insecurity in multiple zones. Climate change, as Afrobarometer polling increasingly reflects, is not a distant environmental risk – it is already a proximate trigger for instability, particularly in regions where livelihoods are tied to natural resources and institutions are fragile. It has become a conflict multiplier.
The G20 is not a security forum per se, and it cannot directly address armed conflicts. But South Africa can argue that the consequences of insecurity in Africa – forced migration, transnational and organised crime, economic disruption – are not regional problems but global ones. It can use its presidency to draw attention to the costs of continued inaction and advocate for more coherent and sustained support for African-led peace and security efforts.
Alongside conflict, economic security is becoming more tenuous. African economies face a combination of external shocks and structural constraints: rising debt burdens, limited fiscal space, high youth unemployment, and uneven access to finance and infrastructure. As Karim El Aynaoui, managing director of OCP Policy Center, notes, the mismatch between the urgency of these challenges and the tools currently available is growing. The international financial architecture is poorly equipped to respond to crises in low- and middle-income countries, particularly regarding sustainable development and climate adaptation.
South Africa cannot resolve these gaps alone but can push the G20 to confront them more directly. The most immediate and achievable area may be around debt. The G20’s Common Framework for Debt Treatments, introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, has underperformed in both uptake and effectiveness. Modest reforms – greater transparency, more predictable timelines, and the inclusion of non-traditional creditors – are both necessary and feasible. Beyond debt, Pretoria can also support calls for increased concessional finance for climate adaptation and infrastructure, especially when aligned with African priorities, not donor preferences. The rhetoric of “development partnership” has been around for decades; South Africa’s task is to translate that into something that survives beyond communiqués.
Where the picture is most complex – but arguably most urgent – is in the realm of human security. This encompasses a range of interlinked challenges: access to food, water, healthcare, education, and protection from environmental and gender-based vulnerabilities. These are not new issues, but their salience has increased, and the space to address them has narrowed. Many have pointed out that these are no longer soft issues but rather the hard edges of contemporary insecurity. The floods in Libya, cholera outbreaks in southern Africa, and recurrent droughts in the Horn are reminders that basic systems of resilience are breaking down.
South Africa must also be more explicit in linking human security deficits in Africa to the broader geopolitical fallout that follows. Migration flows, cross-border insecurity, and economic instability are not isolated consequences – they are the direct outgrowth of unaddressed human vulnerabilities. These dynamics increasingly spill over into other regions, shaping everything from labour markets to electoral politics in the Global North. If the G20 fails to act on these issues, it is not just failing Africa but undermining its long-term stability. South Africa, therefore, has both the obligation and the opportunity to make this argument clear and to frame human security as a core global risk vector.
Yet the political space for advancing a human security agenda at the G20 level is shrinking. Climate finance faces resistance, particularly from the US, whose domestic politics continue to inhibit global commitments. Gender-related issues have become politically polarised, and language on women’s empowerment is increasingly diluted in multilateral fora. Even the UN Sustainable Development Goals, once the lodestar for international cooperation, have receded in relevance in many capitals.
South Africa’s challenge is not to reverse these trends overnight but to preserve space for progress in areas where delivery is still possible. But this will require strategic navigation of a particularly obstructive actor – the US. South Africa must recognise that Washington is not a neutral player in the current multilateral environment; it is, in many areas, an active spoiler. Regarding climate finance, gender equity, and global tax reform, the US is currently actively hostile to the broader objectives of the G20 collective. Pretoria will need to be strategic here and prioritise circumvention over conflict. That means building coalitions with states like India, Brazil, Germany, and Indonesia – countries that retain credibility across different groupings and can form the backbone of functional consensus, even in a fractured world.
It also means foregrounding the African value proposition more clearly. Africa is not simply the world’s youngest continent; it is its most demographically significant. By 2050, one in four people on the planet will be African. If the structural conditions for human development, economic inclusion, and climate resilience are not improved, these will not remain African problems – they will become global crises. Irregular migration flows, pandemic vulnerability, and system-wide economic shocks are already surfacing in response to governance and opportunity gaps in the region.
South Africa must argue that investing in Africa’s human and economic security is not just a development policy – it is long-term global risk mitigation. This view is endorsed by Priyal Singh of the Institute for Security Studies, who says, “If South Africa manages to frame these issues correctly and integrate a solid African human security agenda into the G20 over the coming years, then this would definitely be a win.”
This will require a selective and realistic approach. Broad ambition must give way to targeted focus. Instead of lofty declarations, the emphasis should be on a few credible outcomes: a recommitment to climate adaptation finance for the most vulnerable, modest improvements to debt treatment mechanisms, and a more straightforward pathway for integrating African peace and security concerns into global governance frameworks.
South Africa also needs to be cognisant of its position and level of influence. As Nathalie Tocci, the Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, has argued, the world is no longer multipolar in a cooperative sense – it is fragmented and normatively incoherent. In that context, middle powers like South Africa cannot rely on influence alone. They must build coalitions – what Tocci calls “coalitions of purpose” – that unite like-minded actors across regions.
Similarly, Samir Saran, president of the Observer Research Foundation, has stressed the need for countries in the Global South to shape the rules of the digital and climate transitions, rather than simply absorb them. South Africa can use its presidency to champion a more equitable approach to technology and innovation – one that supports access, inclusion, and sovereignty rather than reinforcing dependence. Again, this won’t happen overnight. But building frameworks now – on data governance, digital public infrastructure, and green industrialisation – can create momentum over time.
There is a risk, of course, that all of this may sound too abstract or disconnected from political realities. But the alternative carries its own dangers. If the G20 is to avoid sliding into irrelevance, it needs leadership that recognises both the limits and the levers of multilateralism. South Africa’s presidency will not be transformative in a structural sense. But it can be defensive in a strategic sense, preserving what remains functional, resisting what is obstructive, and advancing what is still possible.
RONAK GOPALDAS is a director at Signal Risk, an exclusively African risk advisory firm. He was previously the head of country risk at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) for a number of years, where he managed a team who provided the firm with in-depth analysis of economic, political, security and operational dynamics across sub-Saharan Africa. He holds a BCom degree in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) and a BCom (Hons) from the University of Cape Town (UCT). He also has an MSc in finance (economic policy) through the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.[
